Cultural wish list: 25 ways to reshape Toronto

From all-night subways to swanky siphon bars, it's time to change Toronto's culture.

Toronto has plenty of bike lanes, but how about some that actually go somewhere. An unbroken waterfront bike path would be a good start.

By:Ariel TeplitskyWhat’s On Editor, Published on Wed Aug 11 2010

Wanted: more stuff.

If Toronto is, as Steve Martin observed on 30 Rock, “just like New York but without all the stuff,” then stuff is just what we need.

The question is: what stuff? Music? Theatre? Art? We have plenty of those already. The answer has to be something intangibly missing from the fabric of the city, yet that robs us of assuming a complete identity.

During its greatest festivals — TIFF, Doors Open, Caribana, Nuit Blanche, etc. — something unusual happens to Toronto. It loosens up, becomes more self-confident, boisterous, friendly even. Like the shy cousin who feels “more herself” after a couple of drinks, for a few days scattered across the calendar, Toronto becomes the city it wants to be.

So the challenge is: how do we make that festival vibe the norm, not the exception? We’ve assembled a handful of ideas, some modest, some grand, stolen from other great cities or plucked from the creative recesses of our addled Hogtown brains.

1. A Toronto Dish: Admit it. Poutine will always be Quebec’s dish, no matter how artfully our chefs concoct it. So let’s find a food to call our very own — every self-respecting city has one — preferably something cheap and portable. To ensure uniqueness, make it a blend of cultures: an injera burrito? A pho cone? You invent it. The city will decide if it’s good enough to be sold on every street corner — and for Quebec to imitate it.

2. We’ll settle for dessert.

3. Make the subways run 24 hours on weekends.

4. Make the island ferries free on weekdays.

5. Waterfront culture: Harbourfront Centre is great and all, but there’s something distinctly . . . government-funded about it, isn’t there? We want a waterside district teeming with restaurants and clubs and clothing boutiques and theatres and ice cream parlours — more Queen Street than Queens Quay. Throw in a few thatched lakeside huts selling green coconuts in the summer, hot chocolate in the winter (and pho cones — see above) to give it seasonal flair.

6. Bike lanes that actually go somewhere: You would think that with all the fuss that preceded the addition of bike lanes on Jarvis St., the result would be more functional. Yet it unceremoniously abandons riders at Queen St. Many other bike lanes leave riders similarly frustrated. And while we’re at it . . .

7. An unbroken waterfront recreational path: Plans have been in the works for years. Make it happen soon, please?

8. Assigned seating at cinemas: Yes, general admission ensures we get there early enough to watch the commercials. But surely many of us would be willing to pay a little extra for the convenience of knowing where we’ll be sitting when the trailers unspool. This is the norm in parts of Europe, South America and elsewhere; if just a couple of theatres did this here, they might be able to coax a few more of us away from our home theatres.

10. A movie museum: So many are filmed here, so let’s celebrate them. We’ve even got an apt location in mind: the Distillery District. Or, in honour of one Scott Pilgrim, we offer Casa Loma.

11. Night market: This phenomenon, popular in Taiwan — and during the summer in Vancouver’s Chinatown — has proven a hit as a weekend event in Markham (and last week downtown in the parking lot of T&T Supermarket). It’s an idea that deserves a permanent home here, especially in the summertime, uniting craft vendors with free entertainment and an abundance of good, cheap street foods from around the world. What’s not to love?

12. A Capsule Hotel: Far from the most glamorous thing to come out of Tokyo, but not every new lodging needs to be of the five-star variety.

13. Condo culture: Skyscraping condos are here to stay, so there’s no use griping. But we can gripe about the street-level retail at condo towers in pedestrian-heavy zones, which are almost universally abhorrent. Subways and Sobeys do not make a recipe for vibrant streetlife. We’d like to see one new condo offer rooftop drinking and dining, open to the public. Our view of the city/lake has been obstructed; this would be their way to give back.

14. Ferris Wheel for Grownups: Like the futuristic London Eye — which has both shared and private enclosed capsules, and in which you can dine on canapés and sip champagne — a huge modern Ferris wheel here could be an instant success. Put it on the island, next to the CN Tower, or at Exhibition Place, for some of the best vistas of the city.

15. More “Littles”: The Ethiopian community has tried at least twice to designate a part of the city “Little Ethiopia,” most recently on a stretch of Danforth Ave. The proposal was rejected, and that’s too bad. There should be a Little Ethiopia, as well as a Little Japan, Iran, Netherlands, Russia, Jamaica, Chile and Bangladesh. Toronto is all about diversity, and all about its neighbourhoods, so any sizeable community deserves a designated commercial zone, even if it’s only a half-block long. Sure, it’s mostly just a sign, but signs matter.

16. Stop punishing the Entertainment District for being an entertainment district.

17. Make neighbourhood festivals more about neighbours: Taste of the Danforth and its ilk would be more worthwhile if the side streets got involved and residents offered scaled-down entertainment and trays of home-baked goodies, rather than the often-overrated street food hawked along the main drag. A logistical nightmare, you say? We’ll leave that to city planners to solve.

18. Siphon bar: Toronto has shown a seemingly insatiable appetite for indie coffee shops and boutique brewing gear (roasters, Clovers, etc.). Time to take it to the next level: a siphon bar. This Japanese innovation, featuring five individually brewed, glass siphon-filtered pots of java, is halogen-powered and mesmerizing to watch. (It also costs some $20,000.) San Francisco’s heavenly Blue Bottle Coffee has one. It’s one way to get your cafe to stand out from the increasingly crowded pack. Throw in some dim lighting and a well-curated jukebox and you’ve got a rare gem: coffee bar as nightlife destination.

19. Later drinking hours: Torontonians can drink till the wee hours during special events like TIFF. As far as we know, this has not resulted in any more drunken mayhem than usual, so why not allow us an extra hour year-round?

20. Less-stupid liquor laws in general: More freedom at outdoor concerts; more places to buy; more BYOBs at restos without punitively high corkage fees.

21. Permanent pedestrian zone: Pedestrian Sundays in Kensington Market have proven to be a huge hit, but it only happens a handful of times a year. Making a part of the market permanently — or at the very least, every summer weekend — off limits to cars and bikes is the right thing to do. Other candidates for a pedestrian zone: Yonge-Dundas Square; an under-construction neighbourhood such as West Don Lands, where the Pan Am Games village will be built.

22. A Planetarium: Didn’t we used to have one of these? We like planetariums.

23. Gourmet fast food: One of the many pleasures of Brazil are its “por kilo” restaurants, with tables full of foods, freshly prepared daily in time for lunch, and sold by weight for a reasonable sum. While such dining exists here, it is rare and tends to be expensive. Put one in a well-travelled food court to revolutionize dining on the run in this city.

24. Secret Concerts: With the recent success of Metric’s surprise concert at Union Station Square, the City of Toronto should take it a step further. Why not have the city work with promoters to feature acts at unique indoor and outdoor venues across the GTA — from a hangar at the airport to the grounds of the R.C. Harris Filtration Plant — as a regular series of free “secret” concerts? Fans would have to figure out a selection of clues to find the venue.

25. Ping pong: A clever project in London, England this summer has placed 100 ping-pong tables in public spaces around town, indoors and out, encouraging strangers to strike up a game. Last year it was pianos. There’s no reason not to try the same thing here: pianos, ping-pong, bocce, backgammon, table hockey — anything to encourage friendly interaction between strangers. This is “stuff” Toronto could truly use. Let the games begin.

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